Public discourse has been focused on the role of the new ministry of electricity, but what is ignored is that curious ministry located in the Presidency for “planning, monitoring and evaluation”.
If there’s a ministry that is useless, it is this one. What does this ministry plan? There are already government plans to be implemented by each ministry.
Ostensibly this ministry monitors what other ministries are doing. But for what purpose? Does the country really need a minister and deputy minister to watch what other ministries are doing? Why not just an administrative unit within the Presidency to do this?
What about evaluation? Ostensibly, this means that this ministry assesses whether the other ministries are performing or not and report to the president to take appropriate action. But the reality is that ministries misfire every year and the president never acts.
An example is the following: ministers are wantonly disregarding the ministerial handbook on stipulations about their benefits, yet nothing is being done about this.
All the above indicates that South
Africa is a land of “political pork”. The ANC is so beholden to so many interests that it has to accommodate so many, to the point where people are “employed” to do nothing.
The ANC was irate after 1994 that the former Transkei Bantustan had packed its structures with public servants who did nothing. But today it is doing the same thing.
* Dr Thabisi Hoeane, Pretoria.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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